Mol. Interv. 2008 8: 82-98.
[Summary]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
As obesity claims an increasing number of lives every year, our collective awareness of obesity as a global epidemic has heightened. There are complex origins for this relentless epidemic: easy access to large quantities of inexpensive foods that are calorie-rich; eating habits that have changed to match fast-paced and automated lifestyles; and increasingly sedentary work and recreation. These factors compound inherited tendencies to store excess calories as a defense mechanism for times of famine—the so-called thrifty-gene theory. It is estimated that more than thirty percent of adults, and about fifteen percent of juveniles, are obese. These statistics are accompanied by dramatic increases of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, depression, and some forms of cancer. More than 300,000 obesity-related deaths occur in the US yearly; in fact, the incidence of type 2 diabetes in children has increased by more than tenfold. The urgency of the obesity epidemic has fueled biomedical research into the mechanisms that underlie energy homeostasis and the perturbations of metabolic balances that result in disease. Many of these mechanisms—both peripheral and within the central nervous system—suggest promising avenues for pharmacological intervention into obesity, overweight, and the comorbidities of modern, globalized living. (I. Laher)
